At Ruthven Barracks

Due to what railway companies like to call "unforeseen circumstances" I found myself alone in Kingussie one night last week. A stroll out of the village led to the dark and foreboding site of Ruthven Barracks, built to 'garrison the Highlands", after the Jacobite Revolt. 

Ruthven looks so sombre, as it peers over at the A9, that I have wanted to stop and explore it for years, but somehow we were always in a hurry North to the hills, or Southwards towards home in Perth, that I never managed it. Actually, that's not entirely true, I once took my sons there when they were about 5 and 3, as an addition to a day out somewhere in the hills - but when I stopped in the little car park at Ruthven - they were both in a deep, deep sleep which lasted until we were well South of Dunkeld.

With it's gloomy history, from a dark time of conflict and strife; Ruthven Barracks is a sombre place. Alone there, in the shell of the once grand building, with the sun sinking, it was positively eerie. My mind wondered outside to the remaining Jacobites, and their resentment, then inside to the barrack rooms; and wondered what the soldiers billeted here made of the situation. I can only imagine that the situation called for much rejoicing on either side.